Roundup: Brittney Griner, Baylor win in rout

Lady Bears’ star dunks Seminoles

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Baylor’s Brittney Griner had three dunks — the best this one-handed flush — and scored 33 points in her final home game.

Associated press
March 27, 2013

Brittney Griner provided a most appropriate goodbye in her final home game for Baylor — with a trio of dunks and another double-double.

Griner had 33 points and a career-high 22 rebounds to go with her three highlight dunks, including a one-handed slam in the first half and two more in a 79-second span right before coming out of the game for good, as the defending national champion Lady Bears rolled past Florida State, 85-47, Tuesday night in Waco, Texas, in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

With former President George W. Bush part of the crowd packed into the Ferrell Center for the final home game of Griner’s impressive career, the 6-foot-8-inch two-time All-American delivered.

The Lady Bears (34-1) are in the NCAA round of 16 for the fourth year in a row. They play Louisville (26-8) on Sunday in Oklahoma City.

Brooklyn Pope had 12 points for Baylor, which has won a nation's-best 57 games in a row at home. Odyssey Sims had 11 points and Kimetria Hayden 10.

Leonor Rodriguez had 11 points and was the only player in double figures for Florida State (23-10), which at the end of the regular season was the only one of the 343 Division 1 teams with five players averaging in double figures.

The first one-handed slam for Griner came late in the first half of a game that got lopsided in a hurry.

The Lady Bears scored the game’s first 11 points, even without a field goal from Griner in that opening 3½-minute onslaught.

Griner’s opening slam came on a break after a Florida State basket.

Freshman guard Niya Johnson passed ahead to Griner, who took one step without a dribble before slamming it home with 4 minutes left in the first half for a 43-18 lead — sending the partisan crowd of 9,652 into a frenzy as she ran down the court with her mouth open and enjoying the moment.

Louisville 76, Purdue 63 — Sara Hammond had 21 points and 10 rebounds to help the fifth-seeded Cardinals beat the Boilermakers in Louisville, Ky., and advance to their second NCAA regional semifinal in three years.

The Cardinals (26-8) will play Baylor Sunday in Oklahoma City in the program’s fourth regional semifinal in the last six years.

Spokane Regional

Stanford 73, Michigan 40 — Joslyn Tinkle made a career-high five 3-pointers on the way to 21 points in her final home game at Maples Pavilion, and the top-seeded host Cardinal used a spectacular perimeter shooting performance to rout the No. 8 seeded Wolverines and reach semifinals.

Chiney Ogwumike scored 12 points and grabbed 15 rebounds.

Sara James shut down Michigan star Kate Thompson and scored 9 points, and Stanford (33-2) won its 19th straight game to set up a matchup with fourth-seeded Georgia on Saturday.

Bianca Lutley overcame foul trouble and capped an 18-point night with a tough floater in traffic in the final minute to give LSU the lead.

She hit another key free throw to make it a 4-point game with 8.3 seconds to go.

Bridgeport Regional

Delaware 78, North Carolina 69 — Elena Delle Donne scored 33 points in her final home game, and the Blue Hens rallied past the foul-plagued Tar Heels in Newark, Del., to advance to the round of 16 in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.

The sixth-seeded Blue Hens (32-3) trailed, 50-42, with 15:31 left before coming back to extend their school-record winning streak to 27 games and eliminate No. 3 seed North Carolina (29-7).

Delaware next will travel to Connecticut to face Kentucky.

Kentucky 84, Dayton 70 — A’dia Mathies rebounded from the worst game of her career to match her career high with 34 points and lead the second-seeded Wildats over the seventh-seeded Flyers in New York in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Norfolk regional

Notre Dame 74, Iowa 57— Kayla McBride scored a career-high 28 points and the top-seeded Fighting Irish advanced to the regional semifinals with a victory over the Hawkeyes in Iowa City.

Duke 68, Oklahoma State 59 — Elizabeth Williams had 16 points and 12 rebounds, and the Blue Devils rallied to beat the Cowgirls in Durham, N.C., in the second round of the regional.

Haley Peters added 15 points and 13 rebounds while Tricia Liston scored 8 of her 13 points in the final six-plus minutes and Chloe Wells also finished with 13 for the second-seeded Blue Devils (32-2). They advance to face sixth-seeded Nebraska in the regional semifinals on Sunday.

. . .

North Carolina State has fired women’s basketball coach Kellie Harper after four seasons.

The school said Tuesday that the 35-year-old coach wouldn’t return after missing the NCAA Tournament for the third straight year. Harper, a former player under Tennessee’s Pat Summitt, was the successor to late Hall of Famer Kay Yow, who died in 2009 after a long fight with cancer.

Harper’s first team went 20-14, made a surprise run to the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament final, and reached the NCAAs in 2010. But that season ended up being the high point.